No Woods So Dark as These Page 14

  Sometimes the only way she could find sleep was to masturbate. She kept a small pink vibrator in the drawer of her bed table but seldom used it. Too mechanical. Its whir under the sheet made it too hard to imagine a man’s finger or mouth in its place. Her own hand worked better. Had more speeds. Different pressure settings. Didn’t whir.

  She usually started out with Michael Peña because he was gentle and sweet and his soft voice reassured her. Toward the end, though, by the time she tossed the sheet aside, there was no telling who might take over. Ryan Gosling. Ryan Reynolds. Vin Diesel. The Matt Dillon from Crash.

  Tonight she was afraid to get started. She kept seeing herself in the car with DeMarco, sitting along the side of the road, watching the sun sink below the hill and the “great shaggy beasts” as he’d called them. She did not think he would be the one to climb into bed with her but neither did she want him watching her with whomever did. It was a crazy thought but she knew what could happen in the heat of the moment. She had been intimidated by him but now she wasn’t, and that could be a problem too. Every time she felt a bond with an older man had been a problem.

  No, the problem was her own freaking mind. She needed a way to shut it off. Silencio! she wanted to scream.

  There was a little shop behind Citizen’s Bank with a sign that said Reiki & Healing Oils. Just last week it had been a candles and crystals shop. Maybe she could try it out before it became a pole dancing or vape shop.

  She had to do something. Damn her chattering monkey mind. It was almost two thirty and she had to get up at six.

  Okay, there he was again popping into her thoughts. She hadn’t been able to look out his window at the sleeping bison without seeing the side of his face. No, she did not want him, not in that way. She was sure she didn’t. But it was all mixed up, wasn’t it? She was all mixed up.

  It’s okay, he told her, and slipped an arm around her shoulders, pulled her close. She laid her head against his chest, felt his heart beating against her ear. It’s okay to cry, he told her, and so she did. She cried long and hard and he held her close to soften the way her body shook against him. And after a while the tears subsided and she felt herself drifting into sleep finally, safe in his arms, his heartbeat strong and steady, synchronized with her own, a small distant drum beating softly inside her head.

  Thirty-Five

  Saturday mornings always felt different to DeMarco. As a boy he would wake up wary, immediately tensed and alert, as if his body knew the day before his mind did. Usually there was no sign of his father throughout the week but he might stumble in late on a Friday or Saturday night, as dangerous the next morning as a hungover grizzly. So it was wise for a boy to wake up with his senses wide open for a smoky, sour scent or the sound of his father’s snoring, which always reminded Ryan of tires spinning in heavy gravel. If either of these indicators was present, the boy would dress quickly and quietly, creep into the kitchen to fill a plastic grocery sack with whatever he could find in the refrigerator, then slip outside in the chill of morning and head for the woods.

  The first sound he heard this morning was the whimper of the dog standing with its snout close to his. He looked at the light in the windows. Leaf-smoke gray.

  “Okay,” he whispered, and scratched Buddy between his ears. “Give me a minute.” Leaf-smoke gray meant the sun was about to rise. Coal-smoke gray and wet-wood-smoke gray meant fumbling in the dark for his boxers.

  Boxers located, he followed Buddy downstairs and to the back door. The dog surprised him by bounding forward off the porch. “Hey!” DeMarco said, and stepped down into the damp, chilly grass.

  Buddy gave him a look, then went through his usual sniff and squirt routine, watering three or four spots before turning back toward the porch. But this time, instead of stepping daintily up the three wooden steps, the animal paused and stiffened where the brick path met the small concrete pad at the bottom of the steps. He sniffed at the bricks, then went down low on his front legs and growled. A moment later he backed up and started barking at the brick path.

  “Hush,” DeMarco told him, but the barking continued, loud and jarring. DeMarco squinted at the spot. Had another dog or a skunk or possum urinated there? It was impossible to tell. What he did notice, though, was that one brick appeared to be set unevenly, with the corner slightly higher than the other bricks. Was there something under the brick that the dog was smelling? A rodent maybe?

  With his left hand DeMarco clutched the collar and held Buddy at his side. Then he squatted, leaned over and delicately lifted the brick up, keeping the near end low to the ground in case a brown recluse or late-season snake lay there ready to strike. Both were ectothermic and probably too numbed by the chill to do any damage, but why take a chance?

  What he saw beneath the brick was dizzying. It made no sense. What was it doing there? He heard his breath popping out in startled little gasps.

  A shotgun shell, its red crimped top visible inside a small metal cylinder. Positioned to aim at the underside of the brick.

  He pulled the dog back, more sharply than he intended, stood, and went up onto the porch. He was still holding the brick in his right hand as, with his little finger, he opened the screen door and went inside. Then shoved the wooden door closed and locked it and laid the brick on the counter and released the dog and walked briskly upstairs.

  He picked his phone off the bed table and sat on the edge of the bed, turned so that he could lay his hand on Jayme’s hip and nudge her awake. “Hmm?” she said.

  “Honey, get up. You need to get up and get dressed.”

  His mind was racing. Nearest bomb squad in Allegheny County. Sheriff’s office closest. Secure the area. He tapped 9-1-1.

  Jayme sat up. Asked, “What’s going on?”

  He held up a finger, then spoke into the phone. Gave his name and address, said, “Possible explosive device” and heard Jayme suck in her breath. He kept talking to the dispatcher, kept his voice even and steady, though his throat felt strangled by a Saturday morning fear he hadn’t experienced in almost forty years.

  Thirty-Six

  An hour and fifty minutes later, the bomb tech came in through the back door. “Hello?” he said.

  “Back here,” DeMarco told him from the dining room. Jayme, Flores, Boyd, and Captain Bowen were seated at the table, drinking coffee, with DeMarco, the Mercer County sheriff, and the Jefferson Township chief of police standing nearby, coffee mugs in hand.

  The bomb tech, still wearing thick yellow neoprene gloves, held out a three-inch-long piece of dirty pipe, now empty. “It obviously wasn’t meant to kill,” he told them. “But it might have taken off a couple of toes.”

  Jayme leaned closer. “How does it work?”

  “The pipe functions basically as a short gun barrel,” he explained. “There’s a firing pin attached to the bottom cap. Then the shotgun shell was set atop the firing pin. We took a flat rock from beneath the pipe. So the whole thing sat atop that rock like a loaded barrel. Then the brick was on top. Theoretically, if somebody stepped down hard enough on the brick, the shell would have been depressed and the firing pin and primer would have collided.”

  “Would it have worked?” Bowen asked.

  “I see no reason why not,” the tech said.

  Outside, dogs were sniffing the front and back yards, crawling under the back porch, walking over every inch of DeMarco’s property. “We’re just about done outside,” the tech said. “Everything’s clear.”

  “You swept the garage and the vehicles?” DeMarco asked.

  “Yes, sir. Inside and out. All we have left is inside here.”

  “Come in whenever you’re ready.”

  “You folks might like to go out and have breakfast somewhere,” the tech suggested. “Best to err on the side of caution.”

  The group inside had already dissected all possibilities. A call to Chief Brinker in Youngstown, who was in
touch with the FBI in Erie, informed them that there had been no reported sightings of Daksh Khatri since the one in Ottawa, which was almost a week old. Khatri or one of his disciples could easily have traveled to Mercer County by now. Could have easily removed a brick last night, dug a little hole and buried the device. Any moron with a soldering iron could have built it.

  “My question,” said Bowen, “is why? Why you two?”

  “We’re the ones who uncovered his secret,” Jayme said. “So now he’s taunting us. He could have killed us last month when he slipped that first letter inside. I think he just wants us to know that he has the power to get to us anytime he wants.”

  “Sick son of a bitch,” the sheriff said.

  The chief said, “We can put your place on our regular patrol every night, but the township doesn’t have the manpower to—”

  DeMarco waved him off. “We’ll have a full security system installed by the end of the day. Video, motion sensors, lights, alarms…” He laid a hand atop Jayme’s and told her, “Nobody will get near this house again without our knowledge.”

  Everybody in the room nodded. Flores leaned to the side in her chair and looked at the dog curled around Jayme’s feet. “Smart dog,” she said. “What’s his name?”

  “It was Buddy,” DeMarco said, “but I think he just earned a new one. Scout maybe. Or Sentinel.”

  “Hero,” Jayme said, and rubbed the warm belly with her foot.

  “Oh yeah,” Boyd replied, and nodded solemnly at DeMarco. “Hero. That’s the one.”

  Thirty-Seven

  “Maybe we need to step back from this thing,” DeMarco told her. The Denny’s was crowded and noisy that morning, so instead of sitting across from him in the booth, Jayme had chosen to sit beside him, their heads lowered together so as to keep the conversation private. “We could take another road trip,” he said. “At least until the feds can draw a bead on Khatri again.”

  “You don’t want to do that and neither do I,” she told him. “We’ve barely gotten started.”

  “The beginning is the best time to walk away. Boyd is more than capable.”

  She shook her head. “I know what you’re doing, babe. But I don’t need you to hide me away somewhere. Okay? Let’s just finish this. Then we can drive some place warm for the winter and not have to feel like we got chased away by a scrawny little lunatic.”

  DeMarco pursed his lips. Scowled down at his Grand Slam breakfast. “Do you think it’s because he has a crush on you? I always felt like he did. I mean, the way he looked at you those times at the Humane Society…”

  “He stuck a knife in me,” Jayme said. “And I have the scar to prove it.”

  “Well. Yeah. There’s that, I guess.”

  The home security people had promised to show up at 11:30, the same time the bomb squad would be wrapping up, so there was still time to finish their breakfast without rushing. But of course he was restless. Wanted nothing more than to go home, pack up the RV, and drive Jayme and Hero down to Key Largo or Baja or maybe all the way up to Prudhoe Bay. Let the rest of the world go to hell in a hand basket; he and Jayme had already paid their share of dues.

  But she was ten years behind him and still wanted to make a difference. Probably needed another victory to wash away some of the sting from the recent defeat.

  He smiled at her and thought, All right. One more. Once more unto the breach.

  Her phone vibrated on the tabletop and startled both of them.

  “It’s Chase,” she said. Then read the text aloud. “‘Lots of info. Meet up today?’”

  “Tell him we’ll be heading home soon. He can meet us there if he wants.”

  She sent the text. Held the phone while she waited for the reply. DeMarco considered his pancakes. He had eaten only one of the three. Wanted the other ones too but knew if he ate them he would spend the next few hours feeling fat and lazy.

  Again the phone vibrated. She read the text, then held the screen up for him to read: C u there. With a grinning smiley face.

  “He seems happy about something,” DeMarco said. “You know who he reminds me of? Lennie from Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Always hopping up and down with optimism. ‘Gonna live off the fatta the land! And have rabbits!’”

  “You know who you remind me of?” she said. “The old you, when you’re angry. But you’re angry at Khatri, babe, not at Chase. Try to remember that. He only wants to impress you. The same as all those people who showed up this morning. They all just want to do right by you.”

  He nodded, properly reproached. Then said, “I just want to do right by you.”

  “Have another pancake,” she told him.

  And he had to laugh. He couldn’t get away with anything.

  Thirty-Eight

  “Who do you want to hear about first?” Chase Miller asked. “This Reddick guy, or Choo Choo and the ladies?”

  DeMarco had set up three chairs on the back porch while the new security system was being installed inside. A tiny video camera and motion-activated light were already in place above the back door, with others mounted on the garage and out front. If anything bigger than a raccoon strolled onto his property, the image and an annoying ringtone called Tuning Fork would burst from his and Jayme’s cell phones.

  The air was clear but cool enough to require the sweatshirts he and Jayme had pulled on. Miller wore a pale yellow Columbia fleece. As usual, he was cleanly shaved, the khakis with a sharp pleat, his hair gelled and neat. He sat leaning forward on the edge of his chair, facing the others, a mug of coffee in his hands, heels raised as his legs bounced up and down. His eyes were red but Jayme could detect no quivering of the pupils, no discernible dilation.

  She said, “How much coffee have you had today?”

  “Too much,” he said. He took another sip, then set the mug on the floor. “I usually only have one with my mushroom powder first thing in the morning, but this morning I—”

  DeMarco interrupted. “Mushroom powder?”

  “Yeah, but not the kind you’re thinking. It’s a blend I buy online. Lion’s Mane, which is a nootropic, for enhanced cognitive function. Chaga, which is just loaded with antioxidants, triterpene, and melanin. And cordyceps, which enhances energy levels. That’s my morning blend. Usually I have a cup of reishi tea at night to help me sleep, but there was just too much to do last night and I was too wired to sleep.”

  “All this is legal?” Jayme asked.

  “Absolutely legal. You guys should try it. I’ll give you the website.”

  Jayme pointed to his jittery legs. “And that?”

  “This? This is caffeine. Like I said, I skipped my reishi tea last night and went straight for the french roast. Don’t worry; I’ll crash for a couple of hours before I go to work today. I have the dinner shift at the Grille.”

  He seemed completely open to her, and she wanted to trust him. “I won’t have you ruining your health over this, Chase.”

  “I’m fine. Seriously. One night without sleep is no problem. And the mushrooms are good medicine. You really ought to give them a shot. I’ll bring you guys a couple of tea bags next time we get together.”

  Just then Hero rose from his spot at Jayme’s feet, walked over to Chase and sniffed his knee, then lay beside him. “Dogs like me,” Chase said.

  She thought, They liked Khatri too.

  DeMarco asked, “What did you find out about Reddick?”

  “Yeah, that guy,” Miller said. “There’s something funny going on with him. He has a good-looking website but you can’t buy anything from it. Every button I clicked came up the same: Verified Collectors Only. So I kept digging and came up with a phone number. It was about ten last night, but I figured what the heck, give it a shot.”

  “And?” Jayme said.

  “Some woman answered. Deep voice for a woman. Harsh, you know? Like a lifetime of cigarettes and whiskey. So
I tell her I’m interested in an item on the start page, and she’s like, ‘We’re not accepting any new clients right now.’ So I’m all, ‘You’re going to turn away a guaranteed sale? How can you stay in business that way?’ We go back and forth a couple more times and then she tells me to eff off and hangs up.”

  Jayme leaned back, her eyes going wide.

  “I know,” Miller said. “What legitimate business would act that way?”

  “Anything else?” DeMarco asked.

  “About Reddick? Not much. But if you can get me a headshot, I’ll show it around. Somebody will know him.”

  “What do you have on Choo Choo?” DeMarco asked.

  “Ah, the Choo man,” Miller said. “Now this is one colorful guy. He and the two girls—I’m sorry, women. Or should I say ladies?” he asked Jayme. “It’s hard to know these days.”

  “Females will be fine,” she said.

  “Cool. So he and the two females seemed to have popped up in the area last summer. Some of the people I talked to knew him from the rest stop, some from other places. Have Hyundai, will travel.”

  “The Santa Fe was his?” DeMarco said.

  “He was the guy behind the wheel anyway. You want fifteen minutes with a girl? A hundred dollars. A gram of good weed, one Andrew Jackson. Mollies, coke, smack, meth, chocolate suckers, these were all hit or miss. Sometimes he was carrying, sometimes he wasn’t. And oh yeah. One guy I talked to said he remembered once when there was another guy in the car with Choo Choo. Sat in the passenger seat and didn’t say anything. He was the guy holding the drugs that time.”

  “Any description of this guy?” DeMarco asked.

  “White. Scrawny. Little moustache, big ears. My contact said he looked like a real burnout.”

  “Anything else?”

  “That’s all I could get out of him.”

  “Tell us about the females,” Jayme said.